Social Influence

Social influence is when the actions or thoughts of individual(s) are changed by other individual(s). Examples of social influence can be seen in socialization and peer pressure. This is the effect of other people on a person's behaviour.

An example would be movie stars, who don't (usually) possess any political power but are familiar to many of the world's citizens and therefore possess social status. They get a lot of media coverage, they are admired in television shows and they have many enthusiastic fans.

There are 3 components of social influence. They are:

1. Conformity : A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behaviour in order to adhere to existing social norms.
2. Compliance : A form of social influence involving direct request from one person to another.
3. Obedience : A form of social influence in which one person obeys direct orders from another to perform some action(s).